Dysfunction on the Border
Report from West Texas and New Mexico
By John Wahala on October 28, 2021
The Center for Immigration Studies recently completed its ninth border tour, exploring El Paso and the surrounding region. These weeklong trips give us glimpses into the culture and history of the borderlands while providing an understanding of current immigration trends. A recurring theme of this year’s trip — which included visits with local residents, lectures from experts, a tour of Ciudad Juarez and Anapra, and an excursion to White Sands National Park — was the dysfunction created by the Biden administration’s border policies.
About 80 miles west of El Paso sits the small town of Columbus, N.M. The drive on State Road 9 through the desolate and stunning Chihuahuan Desert runs along the border. Bollard fencing can be seen on much of the route. Since January, large stockpiles of raw materials intended to extend the fence lie abandoned. These stockpiles, each worth millions of dollars but cumbersome and costly to move, can be found at various points along the entire southwest border, from Imperial Beach to Brownsville. Their presence represents the abrupt turnaround in border policy by the Biden administration. The profligacy and disorder is a monument to the polarization and discontinuity of our national politics.
West of Columbus there's a gap in the fence of less than a mile. There, welders put down their torches and walked off the job when they got news of the executive proclamation that stopped construction. They continued to get paid not to build the wall. Some of the bollards that had already been erected were left hollow, never filled with the concrete designed to keep them in place. Electricity for gates in the wall was turned off. Areas where Normandy barriers had been cleared in preparation for more secure fencing were left bare.
https://cis.org/Wahala/Dysfunction-Border
